Lawyer Who Inflated Grades for Sidley Job Gets Three-Year Suspension

A lawyer who inflated his law school grades to get a summer associate position at Sidley Austin has been suspended from law practice for three years.

The Illinois Supreme Court is requiring the lawyer, Loren Elliotte Friedman, to get a court order before he can be reinstated, the Legal Profession Blog reports. The decision “has ended the Loren Friedman saga,” the blog says.

Friedman had whited out his first-year C and B grades on a transcript and changed them to As and Bs before submitting them to Sidley Austin, where he worked in the summer of 2002, according to an earlier opinion in the case. He also altered second-year grades submitted to Sidley.

Friedman was an associate at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle in New York when he told the Illinois bar about the altered transcripts.

The Illinois Supreme Court order imposes a lengthier suspension than the 18 months recommended by an ethics review board. But it’s more lenient than the disbarment recommended by the chief counsel for the Illinois agency that oversees lawyer discipline.